Spider-Symmetry: The Sinister and Savage Six

 

Today’s post is part of a very occasional series where I like to highlight the visual or narrative symmetry between the Spider-Man and Spider-Girl comics. For this entry, I wanted to demonstrate a great example, this time from MC2 mainstay and Spider-Girl artist extraordinaire Pat Olliffe.

 

Presented for your consideration, Spider-Girl #25, the double-sized anniversary issue which is probably best known for parallelling and referencing the Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, the first appearance of the villainous team, the Sinister Six. The references include the introduction of a new generation of six (or is it seven?!) super villains who come together as the Savage Six, the Spidey of the day losing their powers, the kidnapping of two supporting characters and the use of gorgeous splash pages to punctuate each battle. Certainly, credit must go to both writer Tom Defalco and artist Pat Olliffe for this loving tribute to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s original work.

 

What’s less a direct reference or parallel to the first Sinister Six story is the cover to Spider-Girl #25, which doesn’t homage Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1. Instead, it references the next Sinister Six story. The Return of the Sinister Six is, appropriately, a six-issue story arc spanning from Amazing Spider-Man #334 to Amazing Spider-Man #339. By now, it’s obvious that the cover of Spider-Girl #25 is an homage to Amazing Spider-Man #337.

 

There’s a lot more to breakdown when it comes to this issue, and it’s obviously just a single example of the literally hundreds of references, homages and continuations present throughout the MC2. But that’s it from me for today!

 

Until I lose my powers either before or after fighting a team of six villains whom I’ve faced separately in the past, I remain

 

frogoat

The Amazingly Bombastic Bag-Man

 

Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has released another trailer and with it we got another glimpse of the very tangentially related ‘Bag-Man’ costume which also happens to make a few appearances in the MC2. I have already published posts about Six-Arm Spider-Man and the original Spider-Armor, so be sure to check those out too.

 

Let us take in some context and history, shall we? Full credit goes to Youtubers Jason Lethert (HeroJournalism and Comics2Film) and Chris Baker for doing all the research and making their confessions. I will try to keep It straightforward, but it is all over the place, so strap in. The iconic and well-known iteration of Peter Parker in an old Fantastic Four costume with a paper bag on his head comes from MC2 creators Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz in Amazing Spider-Man #258. Following the discovery that his new black costume was, in fact, an alien symbiote, Peter was left wearing nothing but his underwear until Johnny Storm outfitted him with the aforementioned suit and bag and slapped a ‘Kick Me’ sign to his back.

 

After intervening in a hit and run robbery, Peter finds himself surrounded by news reporters who bombard the humiliated hero with questions. Returning home, Pete catches a news report about his paper bag persona who the press dubs  ‘The Unknown Super-Hero’. As others above have noted, this is a reference to ‘The Unknown Comic,’ a stand-up comedian who frequently appeared on The Gong Show wearing a paper bag over his head.

Now that we have detailed the infamous origin, let us look at a precursor from way back in Amazing Spider-Man #82 by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. With his Spider-Man costume in desperate need of the local laundromat but worried about onlookers, Peter dons a paper bag mask and swings in to finish his laundry. It is a nice touch from Romita Sr to draw web-shooters on Peter’s wrists, even if the colourist seems to have rendered them the same yellow as Peter’s shirt.

 

The Spider-Man animated show (not to be confused with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends) which began production in 1981 (though it apparently wasn’t completed or widely aired for some time after) also features an instance of Peter wearing a paper bag mask. In the episode ‘The Sandman is Coming’ written by Jeffrey Scott, Spider-Man finds himself inadvertently unmasked by the villain and uses a paper bag to cover his face as he makes his way home in his Spider-Man suit.

 

Writer J.M. Dematteis and artist Luke Ross give us yet another version of the Bag-Man in Spectacular Spider-Man #256. When confronting the villainous White Rabbit and her goons, Peter is forced to throw together this paper bag mask and shirtless look which he dubs ‘The Bombastic Bag-Man’ before launching into a humorous fictitious origin story for his temporary identity. Dematteis even references ‘The Unknown Comic’ again.

 

Now it is time to look at how the Bag-Man costume made the transition to another medium and probably the one most responsible for propelling this design to wider recognition: video games.  Making its first video game appearance in Activision’s Spider-Man in 2000, the costume is dubbed ‘The Amazing Bag Man’. The Bag-Man would go on to appear in various Spider-Man games from then on, but the question remains, why is the Fantastic Four costume with the paper bag mask called ‘The Bombastic Bag-Man’ nowadays if that nom du jour refers to the Dematteis version?  Well, Chris Baker has the answer.

 

As he explains in a video on his YouTube channel, Chris Baker was working as a Licensed Game Manager for Marvel on game developer Beenox’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions in 2010. With the Bag-Man costume, Chris asked them to change the name from whatever name it had originally been given in-game to ‘Bombastic Bag-Man.’ Mr. Baker not only admits his error but points out the actual source of the name, Spectacular Spider-Man #256 while musing what they would call that costume if it appeared alongside the other design in a future game. Games and merchandise since 2010 have often used the ‘Bombastic Bag-Man’ moniker making it widely accepted regardless of accuracy.

 

Now, let us circle back to the MC2 and its own history with the Bag-Man identity. For what might be considered Bag-Man 3.0 or even 4.0 we must look to Spider-Girl #47 in which Peter is visiting the Fantastic Five Headquarters so that Big Brain aka Reed Richards can work on his new bionic leg. When Apox the Omega Skrull destroys the top floors of the building, Peter aids members of the Fantastic Five, his daughter Spider-Girl and the new Scarlet Spider, leaping into battle with a familiar temporary costume courtesy of Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch, albeit this time the trademark paper bag is replaced with a metal helmet belonging to The Thing.

 

This brings us to Spider-Man Family Vol. 1 #1. Therein we have a story (seemingly) set during the mostly unexplored point in time after Baby May is rescued and returned to Peter and Mary Jane Parker by Kaine but before Peter loses his leg in his final battle with Norman Osborn aka the Green Goblin. Lured into a trap by the villain Jack O’ Lantern aka Maguire Beck, Spider-Man meets and teams-up with Araña and her *sidekick* Miguel as they battle a museum room full of Spider-Man robot’s designed to resemble various costumes and points in Peter’s career. Among these we see a robot that appears to be clad in The Unknown Super-Hero costume. This robotic Bag-Man duplicate is destroyed by Spider-Man who alongside Araña and Miguel go on to defeat the mastermind Jack O’ Lantern.

Much like with the case of Six-Arm Spider-Man and the original Spider-Armor there is the lingering question of how Jack O’ Lantern came to know of the connection between Spider-Man and The Unknown Super-Hero given it’s not even spider-themed. I would like to offer a No-Prize explanation. Given the media picked up the story and he was caught on camera, it is not hard to believe there is footage of the Bag-Man crawling up a wall. Thus, Jack O’ Lantern was able to deduce the two were probably one and the same.

 

It is absolutely mind-blowing how much this one-off gag based on a stand-up comedian’s own gag has taken off. It is even more amusing that none of the writers of the Bag-Man appearances seem to have been referencing each other another.

 

Until I wind up in a paper bag with a ‘Kick Me’ sign tapped to my back, I remain

 

frogoat